Grab the .iso file from [https://www.archlinux.org/download/ Arch Download], write this to a memory stick {{bc |<nowiki> sudo dd if=archlinux-201x.xx.xx-dual.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M</nowiki>}}Restart the computer and boot into it like any other Arch installation.

+

Grab the .iso file from [https://www.archlinux.org/download/ the download page], write this to a memory stick {{bc |<nowiki> sudo dd if=archlinux-201x.xx.xx-dual.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4M</nowiki>}}Restart the computer and boot into it like any other Arch installation.

==Useful packages==

==Useful packages==

Revision as of 11:30, 25 October 2013

The X41 and X41t (tablet) are both SATA-based machines that
include a SATA-PATA bridge allowing the use of PATA HDDs, see external links for
modifications to use SATA HDDs and SSDs. The laptops utilise a Pentium M
processor (either 1.5GHz or 1.6GHz), the Linux-ck packages contain optimised
packages for this architecture.

This article contains some useful tweaks to make the most of your machine, the
tweaks are mainly powersaving biased. With vanilla Arch, around 3 hours battery
life was achieved, following powersaving tweaks a bit over than 5 hours
was achieved, this was performed with screen brightness at the second highest
value.

The IBM X41 comes with a ipw2915 wireless Centrino (A, B and G) or ipw2200
wireless Centrino (B and G) module, the ipw2200 module provides support
for these two devices. netctl has been tested and works flawlessly with
the ipw2915.

Powersaving tweaks

Initially without any powersaving tweaks, the X41 uses quite a lot of power
(this can be monitored using powertop, it also provides suggestions for
reducing power consumption). Here are some modifications that I found
considerable improved the battery life of the X41t.

laptop-mode (kernel)

Laptop mode is included in the kernel, it buffers disk activities to reduce
utilisation of your HDD therefore saving a considerable amount of power. The
effect with SSDs is less pronounced, but still saves some power.

echo "vm.laptop_mode=5" | sudo tee /etc/sysctl.d/laptop_mode.conf

SATA-ALPM (pm-utils)

ALPM - Aggressive Link Power Management allows the SATA host bus adapter to
enter a low power state when inactive therefore reducing power consumption.

Powersaving on PCI devices

Powersaving isn't automatically enabled on devices as sometimes it causes
issues, this can save about 2W.

/etc/udev/rules.d/pci_powersaving.rules

ACTION=="add", SUBSYSTEM=="pci", ATTR{power/control}="auto"

i915 RC6 powersaving

The i915 chipset supports a variety of powersaving features, checkout
modinfo i915 \| grep -i power for all options. The
following are a good set to enable.

/etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf

options i915 i915_enable_rc6=7 i915_enable_fbc=1 lvds_downclock=1

RC6 is a powersaving protocol, 7 enables RC6, deep RC6 and deepest RC6 (refer to
Power Management#Enable RC6 Power Save Options for more information).
i915_enable_fbc=1 enables framebuffer compression reducing the time taken
to update the screen. lvds_downclock=1 lowers the clockrate of the
screen.

Disable NMI watchdog

The NMI watchdog is a debugging feature of the linux kernel that is enabled by
default. It is useless for normal operation and significantly increases the
number of CPU wakeups/second.

PHC

PHC - Processor Hardware Control. intel-phcAUR supports the Mobile Centrino
line of processors and hence the X41, this program allows you to undervolt your
CPU. Undervolting reduces the voltage(V) the processor runs at, because P=IV this will reduce your power consumption, this has no effect on performance, any excess voltage will be dissipated as heat, your laptop will run cooler and the fan will activate less frequently.

$ yaourt -S phc-intel
$ phc-intel setup # To install drivers
$ yaourt -S linux-phc-optimize
$ sudo linux-phc-optimize # Repeat this each time the laptop crashes until you've got a full set of parameters, this is 9 times

Once you have established stable VIDs, adding them to system startup can be
accomplished modifying the intel-phc configuration file. If it doesn't exist,
create it

/etc/phc-intel.conf

VIDS="17 15 13 11 9 7 5 4 4"

You can check that this is enabled on your next reboot by sudo intel-phc
status

Tablet support

The X41t utilises a Wacom digitiser for input, pacman -S xf86-input-wacom
provides support for it. Once installed the driver should be activated following
the next reboot.